Pea and Ham Soup for Toddlers and Adults

Pumpkin is a little off colour at the moment.  He has a cold and he's been a bit off his food.  I suspect his throat is hurting.  I've never given him soup at home and it's comforting, 'ill person' food so I thought I'd give it a go.

This makes a thick soup which is useful for toddlers still getting to grips with using a spoon.   I wouldn't give this to babies.  Ham is high in salt, and not something you should eat every day, however, it's also very tasty so I'm not giving it up anytime soon.

The ham was left over from a basic gammon joint I bought in a supermarket.  It was a smoked ham and you can pick these up for around £3-£4.  I cooked it in the oven (follow pack instructions) after taking off the rind, scoring and covering with 1dsp dijon mustard and 1dsp muscovado sugar.  I then wrapped it in foil (loosely), baked for 55 mins at 190oC, then opened the foil for a further 20 mins.  Easy and very little intervention from me meaning I could get on with bathing junior and getting him in bed.

The joy with ham is that leftovers aren't really leftovers somehow, the leftovers are kind of the point with ham and are truly a joy.  A homecooked ham sandwich is elevated from the typical humble value bread with shiny presliced ham when you use proper, slow fermented bread, real salted butter and homecooked ham.

That joy however, will have to wait.  Today was soup day and despite his general grumpiness, it went down ok.  He ate most of his portion and half a slice of bread with unsalted butter.  Considering his lack of appetite recently, that's a huge amount of food.  Now if he would just go down for his nap...  (he's currently talking to himself in his cot!)

Pea and Ham Soup - ok for toddlers and adults, serves 1 toddler and 1 mummy

Ingredients

65g Ham
250g frozen peas
Boiling water to cover
1 very low salt stock cube, e.g. Heinz or Kallo; I used chicken

Method

Hmm, how to make this sound like a 'proper' recipe.  Put everything in pan with enough water to cover.  Boil.  Blimey, my writing just gets better and better.

Scoop the solid bits into a liquidiser (blender) and a bit of stock, blend.  Add more stock if it's too thick.

Done!

You could add more ham if this is just for adults or use some cooked bacon instead.

When he's older, would it be wrong to call this spooky-ooky soup?